Leader's Edge Election Cover

Here is my first cover for Leader's Edge magazine, an insurance industry publication. Creative Director Ted Lopez was great to work with--easygoing with a clear vision what he was looking for. The cover article is about the many possibilities for the insurance industry that could result from this year's presidential election. The editors wanted to see Obama and Romney nearing the finish line to the presidency with several winding paths all leading to the White House.

I submitted four sketches, seen here, and they ultimately chose the marathon runner theme, seen in sketch #2.

This one would have been fun, mostly for the chance to paint the little Paul Ryan in the doghouse on top of the car.

 This is the sketch they went with, but as you can see, although Obama is pretty close to what appears in the final art, Ted thought Romney's figure looked a little odd with the giant water bottle, so I completely redesigned him during the process.

 This was probably the safest of the four sketches.

This would have been fun just to draw Obama and Romney in a fight to death on top of a cliff.

One more image you might be interested in, early on throughout the process the idea had been to make the final art much darker and gloomier. A late editorial decision resulted in me changing the background and overall lighting entirely to something a lot happier (think--Wizard of Oz, as I was told). I have to admit I kind of miss the cool stormy sky I painted below, but I'm overall very happy with how this turned out. It was a lot of fun and I hope to get a chance to work with Ted again soon.